Nice shot. Congratulations on a fine bear.

This was the first time that I heard the death moan. I did not feel any emotion with it. I love to bow hunt and the worst feeling is an injured animal that is not recovered. This animal died pretty quick.

Agreed. Made me sick to hear it, much less the commentary afterwards. The more I see of bow hunting, the less comfortable I am with it.

I love bowhunting. It is how I hunt and kill the majority of the time. If you think wounded and suffering animals don't happen with firearms you are naive. Once I ran down and dispatched a buck that had three separate rifle wounds. Two of them septic. One was a dried up, scabbed up hole through a hind quarter you could see through when you lifted it's leg. This was just weeks before I had to have a stent put in my LAD artery and couldn't move very fast for very far without collapsing myself to let you know how bad a shape that buck was in. I have killed at least three deer wounded by other hunters days before I saw them. Twice it was finishing off deer other hunters in my party shot days before. I have even killed a doe with my rifle the last day of season that I gave a slight flesh wound when she jumped the string during bow season.

For me bear hunting holds no draw. The meat, the hide, the head, none are desirable to me or my family. I had considered going on a hunt with a friend just to go on a good hunt with him but couldn't talk myself into it. There is nothing that makes me want to do it and listening to the long death moan on the video just reinforced that. Honestly, having lived around bears in the Adirondack Mountains as a youth, I never had the desire to hunt them. We fed them marshmallows at the town dump (landfill). They were a tourist attraction.

Hunting them is kind of like hunting one of the sheep or goat species. Just not my thing. If others want to and it's their thing then more power to them. As for the death moan itself well it wasn't a pleasant thing for me. I have heard a death moan on other video hunts but they were just a quick bawl. Then again, I hate coyotes. A couple of them I've shot I made bad shots on. The yipped and "screamed" until I put a second round in them. As much as I would like to minimize the coyote population I did not enjoy listening to them and dispatched them as quickly as I could get a second round in them.

I trapped for a few seasons as a youth and never enjoyed seeing an animal struggle in a trap. I liked using Conibear style body traps and drowning sets because the animal was usually dead when I got there. Eliminated that part of the equation. But I still trapped regardless.

I don't condemn the hunter for being excited. It's his first bow kill, his first bear and the moan tells him it is dying close by so he knows he made a great shot.

The reason I had started to leave a couple of posts and deleted them is because it is difficult to state the internal conflict the sound of that death moan created without condemning the hunter, the method of the hunt or even judging another hunters choice. Those things are not mine to judge or condemn.

Right, because everyone should just sit in a box blind like you with a 30-06 and shoot animals at 100 yards so that they can all fall dead right there 100% of the time. That's enough of a challenge for everyone, nobody should be allowed to challenge themselves any further. The more I see ignorant posts regarding bow hunting, the more I'm convinced those people are liberals and anti-hunting.

Bow hunting is not for everyone. Some people will never be comfortable with it, but it is each individual hunters decision on which method they choose to harvest their game with. If you hunt long enough with rifle, shotgun, or bow you will eventually have an animal that you don't put a clean shot on and they suffer before they finally expire. That is not the case with this video, that is a sign of a good clean shot and it even says it in the title of the post. Good thing about it is that you are allowed to have your opinion and I am allowed mine. If you choose not to bow hunt that is your choice, but please don't judge others for doing something that they love.

If you have ever seen how your burger you get at whataburger was killed, and how it lived before it was killed....how the bear died would seem 10 times more humane. But if you hunt, at some point you have hit an animal in the wrong spot and watched it try and run off with a broken back or legs. Just cause deer dont moan, doesnt mean it was any more ethical. I guess what you all are saying, is you like your animals to keep their mouth shut when they die?

Yep. That would be good. Same way I like my women and kids. Quiet. Actually got invited on another bear hunt today. Told him the same thing I told my other friend. Just can't find enough interest in it to spend that kind of money and travel that far.

Nothing wrong with that man.

I find a lot of the comments on here to be quite naive. Death is not pretty. The fact that bears let out a death moan as they expire sometimes evokes empathy in some people and I am not saying that is a bad thing............... hunters should be empathetic towards living creatures and respect them. You are taking a life. Having said that you really need to think about it and realize that the reason it happens is because bears are much more vocal creatures than most ungulates. Your deer that you lung shoot goes through the same process while expiring, but does not moan................ which some of you seem to think makes it somehow more sterile and no suffering is involved. If you want to delude yourself feel free.

Another animal that moans or bellows quite often at death is the African cape buffalo.

In any event the death moan does not occur every time a bear is killed. I would guess that at least half the bear hunters I host report not hearing it, including the archers. After the arrow hits the bear takes off running and on a good double lung hit or through the top of the heart, the broadhead often causes such massive bleeding that the bear literally dies at the end of its run and there is no noise.

If you want DRT with a bear you need to smash the shoulders/central nervous system. Not going to happen with archery equipment, but can sure as heck be done with a rifle if you know their anatomy well and place your shots. I killed a Boone & Crockett black this past fall that was well over 500 pounds and he literally dropped in his tracks and never moved with such a hit. My last archery bear died after running about 30 yards, thrashed a little bit and expired. No death moan and I could see him go down.

By the way the oft spoke of death bellow from cape buffalo never happened on either of the two I have shot. Took off running with blood blowing out their noses and then did a nose dive in the dust, kicked a few times and silence.

In any event, as I said before, death is not pretty............ it never is and all we can do as moral and ethical hunters is try to end things as quickly as possible. For archery, the death of the bear in this video was about as fast as it is going to happen and the "suffering" period was brief. The biological process of death is the same for a whitetail, but they do it in silence. This does not mean that you are somehow more moral or ethical, the deer just spared you an audible reminder of the fact that you have just taken a life.

Nope to each their own

Skyline I hope you are not referring to my comments.

Sky, this was my thinking and the basis of comment about bow hunting in this context.

duck, there are enough challenges in the goals I set for myself in my life that there is neither need nor time to add archery.

p.s. I don't own a 30-06, my last hunt was not from blinds, and there were no feeders. My very last hunt was helping my 9 year old nephew put a 500 yard sneak on a pig to within 25 yards.

Yes, I do strive for DRT.

There is no honor or glory in causing an animal suffer.

Hope you have a great day.

No sir. Bear hunting is not for everyone. There are animals I could care less about hunting as well, like feral sheep down your way or giraffe over in Africa. They don't do anything for me. If others want to hunt them they can fly right at it and I hope they have a good time.

I agree on the sheep/goats here in Texas. I'm sure the real wild counter parts in their natural environment are different. But still not my cup of tea. Not much in Africa is drawing me there either. Elk, whitetail and pigs. They are my home ground hunts of choice.

I understand what you are saying but believe me, I have harvested many bears over the years and this hunter made the best shot a person can make on a bear. I explained the death moan to him and that meant a great ethical shot....45 seconds is a very short time for an animal to pass. If a person has never hunted black bears, yes, this noise would be unsettling for sure but if a hunter is educated prior to harvesting a bear they would rejoice knowing they have made an ethical shot.

It is very hard to explain until you have experienced it; however, when hunting black bears know full well, if you do not hear the moan, the bear was not hit clean and you will have a lot of tracking to do.

I hope this explain things better. Cheers and stay safe

A arrow thru the lungs kills just as fast as a bullet thru the lungs.

If deer could moan there would be so many moaning on opening day the ground would shake.